Voice, Winter 2017

Winter 2017

Interdisciplinary collaboration: Confronting scientific challenges, moving health care forward

from the dean susan gennaro

Dear Friends,

voice dean Susan Gennaro

Three times during the past week,

editor

I have come across this maxim:

Maureen Dezell

“If you want to go fast go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.”

I repeat this saying (frequently attributed to an African proverb) not because it is so familiar, but

Tracy Bienen

art director Diana Parziale

because it is so often true.

graphic designer

Traveling or working together,

Christine Hunt

while sometimes difficult at the

contributors

beginning of a journey, almost

Timothy Gower Judy Rakowsky Chris Reidy John Shakespear

always takes us further than Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

managing editor

pursuing a path alone.

This issue of Voice celebrates some collaborative successes at the Connell School of Nursing—Team Science, the SCRUBS sophomore retreat, and our 70th anniversary celebration. All are impressive endeavors. Each is made more so by the fact we have undertaken them together. In these pages, we also welcome new faculty and recognize the extraordinary lifetime achievements of one of our

photographers Caitlin Cunningham Gary Wayne Gilbert Josh Levine Rose Lincoln Lee Pellegrini

community members.

I would like to extend a welcome to you, and an invitation to join us as we continue to go far, traveling together.

Yours,

Voice is published by the William F. Connell School of Nursing and the Boston College Office of University Communications.

Letters and comments are welcome: csonalum@bc.edu

Susan Gennaro Dean

Communications Specialist William F. Connell School of Nursing Boston College 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

cover Artwork: iStock.com/Graffizone, Christine Hunt Story begins page 8.

contents

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Clockwise from above: Ann Burgess Photograph: Josh Levine

Darlene (MacIsaac) Hinojosa ’86 Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

Retreat circle Photograph: Rose Lincoln

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Team science Artwork: iStock.com/Graffizone, Christine Hunt

Winter 2017 news

4 Connell School alumni, faculty, and

Features

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students honored by leading nursing organizations

achievements

Ann Wolbert Burgess, pioneer in forensics, victim advocacy, earns legacy award

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Faculty publications

8 Team science: Interdisciplinary collaboration—confronting scientific challenges, moving health care forward

11 SCRUBS retreat: A chance for sophomores to reflect

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New faculty

18 Celebrating 70 years

www.bc.edu/voice

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news by john shakespear

Community leadership

Above: Callista Roy, C.S.J. Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

Above right: BC Runs for Haiti 5K Photograph: Donna Cullinan

Below right: Darlene Hinojosa Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham

The Roy Adaptation Model marked its 50th anniversary in 2016. Named for Connell School Professor and Nurse Theorist Callista Roy, C.S.J., this widely used framework for theory, practice, and research in nursing sees the individual as a set of interrelated biological, psychological, social, and spiritual systems. The nurse’s role is to help the patient maintain a balance among the systems and a changing environment. The Roy Adaptation Association, an international society of nursing scholars who seek to advance nursing practice by developing knowledge based on Roy’s model, celebrated its 25th anniversary as well.

Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess was the guest speaker at the 16th annual Boston College Veterans Remembrance Mass and Ceremony on Friday, November 11.

As part of the day’s events, the Connell School also hosted a panel with VA Hospital representatives on the current state of mental health care for veterans.

visit the new cson website

www.bc.edu/cson Bold images, compelling videos, and a responsive mobile design now tell the full story of the Connell School

Faculty Associate Professor Jane Flanagan was one of five nurses inducted into the second class of NANDA International Fellows.

Flanagan was also awarded a research grant from the American Holistic Nurses Association for her project “Bringing Yoga Home: Exploring the Use of a Web-based Yoga Intervention for Breast Cancer Survivors,” and a three-year grant for “A Pilot Study of a Health-coached Walking Program for Family Caregivers of Persons with Dementia” from Boston College’s Institute on Aging.

Assistant Professor Allyssa Harris and Sonia Chiamaka Okorie ’17, a KILN (Keys to Inclusive Leadership in Nursing) scholar, presented Harris’s research on “Father 2 Son: African American Father-Son Sexual Communication” at the National Black Nurses Association’s annual conference in Memphis in August.

Boston College’s Institute on Aging awarded Assistant Professor Carina Katigbak a three-year grant for her project “An Exergaming Intervention to Enhance Physical Activity for Community Dwelling Immigrant Elders.”

Assistant Professor Jinhee Park received the inaugural Eastern Nursing Research Society’s 2016 Nursing Research Authorship Award for her paper “Factors Associated with Feeding Progression in Extremely Preterm Infants,” which was published in the journal’s May/June 2015 issue.

Carroll Chair Judith Vessey was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame at the Society’s International Nursing Research Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, last summer. And Associate Professor Danny Willis was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nursing during the Academy’s annual policy conference in Washington, DC, in October.

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Events Darlene (MacIsaac) Hinojosa ’86, a nurse practitioner and colonel in the US Army Reserve’s Army Nurse Corps, received the Connell School’s 2016 Dean Rita P. Kelleher Award for alumni achievement at Boston College’s reunion in June.

Loretta Sweet Jemmott, Drexel University’s vice president for health and health equity and a professor at the College of Nursing and Health Professions, considered the skills and characteristics of nursing leaders in her fall Pinnacle Lecture on November 30.

Students Doctoral degree candidates Kim Pomerleau Angelini ’11 and Erin Flaherty ’10, M.S. ’12, represented the Connell School at the Eastern Nursing Research Ph.D. student research poster exhibit. Two members of the Class of 2018, Lanah Han and Lea Nelligan, were awarded Boston College Advanced Study Grants. Han traveled to South Korea for her project, “Exploring Options for US Health Care: Lessons to Be Learned from South Korea,” and Nelligan traveled to Ecuador for “Care of the Whole Person: Medicine and Cultural Connection.”

Kathryn Post, M.S. ’07, a student in the Ph.D. program, was tapped to present “Breast Cancer Care Redesign as an Approach to Streamline Survivorship Care: Outcomes and Challenges” at the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s Cancer Survivorship Symposium in San Diego in January.

CSON students and faculty hosted the BC Runs for Haiti 5K in September 2016. The annual event raised nearly $3,700 to purchase medications and medical supplies for the mission trip to Haiti in January.

In January, CSON celebrated its 70th anniversary with an open house for the Connell School family and the Boston College community. (See story, page 18.)

Alumni In June, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital honored Ben Dalton ’15 with a Medicine Residency Nursing Award, which recognizes nurses’ outstanding service and commitment to patient care at BWH, its Faulkner Hospital, the Boston/West Roxbury Veterans Administration Health Care System, and outpatient clinics. Dalton is a staff nurse in BWH’s surgical ICU and a former 2015–16 VA Boston Healthcare System Nurse Resident.

Maureen Gormley ’85 was appointed deputy director for management at the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in August.

In November, the Public Health Nursing section of the American Public Health Association awarded its 2016 Ruth B. Freeman Award to Pamela Kulbok ’70, M.S. ’75, the Theresa A. Thomas Professor of Nursing at the University of Virginia School of Nursing.

TELL US YOUR NEWS csonalum@bc.edu

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PIONEER in forensics, victim advocacy, earns legacy award

by Judy Rakowsky

When a nurse or physician asks for permission before examining a sexual assault victim— giving an abused woman back a modicum of control over her body—it is largely because of the life’s work of Professor ANN WOLBERT BURGESS. When FBI profilers track evidence at sex crime scenes or hunt cyber predators of children, they are building on Burgess’s research on links between child abuse, juvenile delinquency, and subsequent perpetration.

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Countless victims—from sexually violated soldiers, to college students who were date raped, to abused nursing home residents whose dementia or stroke symptoms prevented them from speaking—have benefited from Burgess’s decades of transformative research and track record in bringing abusers to justice.

She learned this firsthand in the early 1970s, when she and Boston College sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom co-founded one of the country’s first hospital-based crisis counseling programs at Boston City Hospital, and introduced Rape Trauma Syndrome into the scientific literature.

Burgess’s signal achievements were officially recognized in October, when she was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing (AAN). Connell School Dean Susan Gennaro was one of three AAN Fellows who nominated Burgess for the honor, calling her “a leader in psychiatric mental health nursing whose groundbreaking work in caring for victims of violence has led to the development of forensic nursing as a specialty.”

Burgess and Holmstrom saw that rape victims resisted returning to a scene they associated with their attacks.

Following up with them off-site and by telephone proved more effective in yielding information. The two tracked the health and well-being of 146 victims, ages 3 to 73, for a year, gathering evidence in trailblazing research that followed them through court hearings and trials, whether or not they testified.

It is the particular vantage point of the nurse, who is the steady presence in clinical settings and often in the best position to notice telltale behaviors of trauma victims, that has put nursing at the vanguard of contemporary trauma treatment, Burgess said.

As her research into rape became known in the early 1970s, Burgess was invited to the FBI Academy, which was just forming its profiling unit. She helped investigators study serial offenders and recognize the patterns connecting evidence from sex crime scenes to their

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motivations. That work led to grants for studying serial killers and sexual homicides, followed by a series of studies of serial child molesters and research that expanded the understanding of how victims become abusers. With Connell School Professor Emerita Carol Hartman, Burgess studied the growth and development of very young trauma victims, their families, and communities.

Burgess, who in 2009 was awarded the inaugural Ann Burgess Forensic Nursing Award by the International Association of Forensic Nurses, has made insightful connections between victims and perpetrators and how to treat victims in a way that does not induce f lashbacks.

Now internationally recognized as a pioneer in the assessment and treatment of victims of trauma and abuse, Burgess continues her study of elder abuse in nursing homes, cyberstalking, and Internet sex crimes. She also teaches popular courses in victimology, forensic science, and forensic mental health.

With her natural curiosity and affinity for building bridges, Burgess is known for creating interdisciplinary teams of law enforcement, mental health, and medical practitioners for investigations. Partnerships are key to the success of one of her most recent efforts, the College Warrior Athlete Initiative, a collaborative wellness and fitness program for post-9/11 veterans that parlays the health, athletic, and educational resources of Boston College.

“The work is never done,” said Burgess, speaking in her West Newton home after spending the weekend training a delegation from Egypt in effective sexual assault investigations. “Men are still raping. Sexual assaults are happening on campuses, and if you have a woman veteran who has been deployed, you can assume somewhere she has had a tough time.”

But there is substantial progress to celebrate, she said, largely as a result of education and training. Rape evidence collection methods are not as mortifying as they once were. “Wounded warriors make no bones about having PTSD,” she pointed out. It is more socially acceptable to talk about trauma and to seek help.

For her part, Burgess shows no signs of slowing down as she moves on with a fivecourse teaching load and extensive research and professional commitments.

She said, “I just have too much to do.” n

Burgess pours a lot of time and attention into that expanding program, the hallmark of a practitioner who is still in touch with many victims she got to know over the years through research and conferences. Some come and present at her classes, where they share their experiences of trauma and effective treatment, which involves finding ways to take control of memories— particularly the powerful sensory ones of sight, smell, and sound—in order to move on.

A veteran works out in Boston College’s Flynn Recreation Complex.

Photograph: Josh Levine Artwork: iStock.com/DrAfter123

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By Timothy Gower

LAST APRIL, DOROTHY JONES RECEIVED A REQUEST FROM STAND UP TO CANCER ,, a non-profit organization that funds medical research. Could she produce a series of web-based educational modules that would teach nurses how to manage symptoms caused by cancer immunotherapies (which stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells) by the end of the calendar year? Jones, a professor at the Connell School, said yes, then immediately wondered how she could meet such a tight deadline. The answer came to her just as quickly: SHE HAD TO FORM A TEAM. Jones enlisted two colleagues, Associate Professors Jane Ashley and Jane Flanagan, as well as several nurses from Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital to help develop the modules. She also recruited Boston College staffers from the Center for Teaching Excellence (to help produce video, graphics, and other elements of the modules), Information Technology Services (to get the modules online), and Continuing Education (to ensure module users received credit).

Jones’s group worked through the summer and fall to have the modules completed and available to nursing students at BC and nurses at other institutions in early 2017. “That’s unbelievably fast,” says Jones. “It’s a testament to the people involved.” And it’s an example

of how collaboration among people from different disciplines is often necessary to confront scientific challenges and move health care forward today.

“Team science” has emerged as the depth and breadth of scientific knowledge expanded, making it increasingly difficult—and often impossible—to explore new ideas within academic silos. Getting together with colleagues, frequently from other disciplines, is essential to tackling today’s complex biomedical problems, says L. Michelle Bennett, director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute, who studies the science of team science. Bennett points to the need for collaboration among disparate disciplines in confronting public health

Images: iStock.com/ranplett, Christine Hunt

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voice | winter 2017

crises such as the emergence of the Zika virus, which has required expertise in infectious disease, epidemiology, fetal development, and other fields. “You need a team to understand how the different elements come together,” says Bennett.

Vaccination and Eliminating Barriers: Recommendations from Young Men Who Have Sex with Men” in Vaccine, and “Parental Attitudes and Beliefs Regarding the Nine-Valent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine” in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Jones is one among a number of nurse scientists at the Connell School who are collaborating with researchers and clinicians from across the Boston College campus and in other institutions to study chronic disease, sexually transmitted infections, health care delivery, and other critical issues. “In order to effect change in health care,”

“There’s a great synergistic effect,” says Fontenot of her teamwork with Zimet. And talking with patients regularly gives her valuable information about their values and beliefs. For example, many have told Fontenot that they wished more health care information and resources were available as smartphone apps. That, she says, is helping her to plan future studies. “My clinical experience informs the science.”

says Assistant Professor Holly Fontenot, “you can never work alone. You have to have a team.” 

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One day in the fall of 2013, Fontenot got a piece of advice that changed the course of her research in human papillomavirus (HPV). As a nurse practitioner, Fontenot treats adolescent patients at the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center at Fenway Health, a community-based center that specializes in treating the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community and people with HIV/AIDS. As part of her research, Fontenot studies ways to promote wider use of the HPV vaccine, which prevents cervical cancer and head and neck cancer. She’s particularly interested in increasing vaccination rates in underserved populations, notably young males who have sex with males.

Fontenot met frequently with a mentor, Ken Mayer, MD, co-chairman of the Fenway Institute, the research arm of Fenway Health, who urged her to talk with Greg Zimet, a nationally renowned clinical psychologist at Indiana University who studies attitudes about the HPV vaccine.

Not long after an e-mail introduction from Mayer, she was collaborating with Zimet. The pair, along with groups of physicians and other nurse clinicians, have co-authored several papers and articles in the last year. Fontenot was first author and Zimet a co-author of “Increasing HPV

Meanwhile, Zimet has served as a mentor—someone who has taught her a great deal about writing grant proposals, study design, and other essentials for conducting research. He has also introduced her to other investigators, which has led to further collaborations.

Their work as a team, Fontenot says, “has helped me take my thinking about HPV science to the next level.” 

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Interim Associate Dean for Research and Associate Professor of Nursing Ellen Mahoney describes a similar kind of synergy in her cross-disciplinary work with a collaborator she has known all her life: her brother, Kevin Mahoney, a professor in Boston College’s School of Social Work. The two have joined forces on several research projects that focus on challenges of aging and older adult health. “Kevin has expertise and background in aging and social policy. I have a history of working with caregivers of people with chronic disease and disabilities,” says Mahoney. “So the theoretical underpinnings of our disciplines are often complementary, but they’re also different.”

Recently, the Mahoney siblings examined the role of caregivers of people who use participant-directed services

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(PDS), which help people with chronic conditions and disabilities live independently and determine and manage the mix of personal assistance and services best suited to their health care needs. Kevin recruited and Ellen and several students interviewed dozens of parents, spouses, and adult children from around the country who care for people who use PDS. Their research found that the unpredictability of day-to-day needs increases the complexity of caring for these patients. “We melded our expertise to work together on this project,” says Mahoney of the study, in which they teamed up with colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago and National Council on Aging, among others. 

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Of course , team science is not without challenges. “It takes awhile to learn others’ priorities, and to learn their language,” says Assistant Professor Tam Nguyen, whose research examines the prevention of chronic disease, especially in minority populations. Nguyen has collaborated with investigators outside of nursing on several projects, and is currently part of a large and diverse team that is applying for funding from the PatientCentered Outcomes Research Institute to study ways to prevent type 2 diabetes in Asian Americans. The team also includes Professor of Social Work Thanh Tran, two physicians from local clinics, a diabetes educator, leaders of several non-profit agencies, and two pre-diabetic patients.

Nguyen explains that collaborating with non-scientists often means she must manage expectations and preach patience. “A lot of the time, they’re ready to go,” she says. They’re not aware that a

study can’t get off the ground before researchers have applied for and obtained institutional review board approvals and grants.

“Unless you live in the world of a researcher, you don’t understand how long that can take,” says Nguyen.

Taking certain steps can help ensure success in team science.

Nguyen recommends drafting formal terms that define who does what, and by when, and having all members sign off on the agreement at the outset of a collaborative project. Choosing the right personnel is another key to success in team science, says Jones. “Pick people you know you can work with,” she says. A principal investigator forming a team may be tempted to recruit a co-scientist known for his or her wisdom and deep experience.

“But what if they can’t work with anybody?” asks Jones, who says she has candid conversations with prospective team members to ensure they understand their roles and can work as part of a unit.

And when a team clicks, members share a common goal, respect one another, and are open to listening to others and changing their minds about critical matters, says Fontenot, who notes that collaboration has another important upside. “I don’t like doing things by myself,” she says. Working to solve challenging scientific problems as a team, Fontenot adds, “is way more fun.” n

ged r e m has e ” e c adth scien e ed, r d b m n a d e a n p “T pth a ge ex e d d e l e ult— ow c i n f a s th f k i c gly d ntifi n e i i ore s l c a p s e x r e of —to it inc e l g b n i i s ilos. s s o c p i mak en im adem t c f a o n and ithi w s a ide new

Images: iStock.com/baranozdemir, Christine Hunt

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SCRUBS RETREAT A chance for sophomores to reflect

By John Shakespear Photographs by Rose Lincoln

On a snowy Valentine’s Day weekend last winter, while many of their classmates were celebrating or skiing, some 70 Connell School of Nursing sophomores spent two days off campus, reflecting on their experiences at Boston College, and the academic and professional transitions ahead.

It was the first-ever SCRUBS (Sophomore Connell Retreat for Undergraduate B.S. Students), a program of talks, contemplation, and conversation held February 12–14, 2016, at the Wonderland Conference Center in Sharon, Massachusetts (and repeated February 10–12, 2017). The inaugural retreat, a collaboration between the Center for Student Formation and the Connell School, featured presentations by professors, alumni, and upperclassmen, along with professional development workshops, small-group breakout discussions, and unstructured time for students to relax and recharge during the heart of the academic year.

The idea for SCRUBS grew out of Dean Susan Gennaro’s annual year-end discussions with graduating Connell School students. In recent years, as she’s spoken with seniors about their experiences at Boston College, Gennaro has noticed a thread: many students told her that sophomore year had been a challenging time in their nursing education, a kind of crossroads in their academic and social lives boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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between the foundational classes all freshmen take together in the first year and the more specialized clinical practice placements and advanced coursework that define the last two years of the program.

“In many ways,” said retreat co-organizer and director of the Center for Student Formation Mike Sacco, “the middle of sophomore year is the perfect time to get students together to ref lect—they’re serious enough about their major and immersed enough in the college culture to have fruitful discussions.”

CSON’s Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs Sean Clarke and Assistant Dean of Student Services, Diversity, and Inclusion Julianna Gonzalez collaborated with the Center for Student Formation’s Sacco and Tim Mulvey, assistant director of Collaborative Initiatives, to translate some of the concepts and traditions of longstanding Boston College retreats such as KAIROS into the context of nursing education. A goal of SCRUBS, Mulvey said, was to customize the formation experience for Connell School students.

Approximately two-thirds of the 110 members of the class of 2018 attended the retreat. They were drawn in part by an opportunity to prepare for and think about the academic changes ahead—specialized upper-class courses and simulation labs; the “transition to clinical”—and career choices after graduation. But the appeal was personal and social as well.

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Freshman-year friends often see less of each other during sophomore year, said Bethany Candage ’18. “This weekend was something I didn’t know I needed until I was here—a chance to reconnect with my classmates away from BC.” In particular, the small groups offered a chance for those sophomores who had started their clinical placements to share insights with classmates who were about to begin their own work in hospitals and health centers. “It’s good to reconnect now, just when we’re starting to break off and specialize,” said Trevor Golden ’18. “It’s valuable to gather together again before we go out into the world.” Senior leaders were also able to speak to the experience of starting to work in a hospital.

Over the course of the weekend, 10 Connell School seniors, five faculty members, and five recent alumni gave talks on topics such as “Choosing Nursing,” “Clinical Leadership,” and “Social Life as a Nurse.” Alumni and seniors shared pivotal experiences that helped them gain confidence in themselves as nursing professionals and develop their individual voices in the workplace. They emphasized the

importance of forming personal and professional bonds with other nurses.

During her first clinical placement, Gabija Pileika ’16 said she met a stroke victim who had lost his ability to speak. After struggling with how to best advocate for the patient, she realized she could encourage other members of the team to ask “yes or no” questions to communicate with him. That early experience, Pileika said, helped her understand and embrace her role as a nurse. She encouraged sophomores to “be that voice that your patient doesn’t have.”

On Friday night and Saturday, the talks were followed by small-group ref lection, discussion, and activities. A Connell School senior led each group, lending

perspective on work in hospitals and clinics and advanced coursework. Of her clinical placement, group leader Sarah DiGirolamo ’16 said, “At the time, it was useful to talk to older students to hear that feeling overwhelmed at first was okay; it was actually normal.”

On Saturday afternoon, students took advantage of a block of free time to attend Mass; relax at the conference center; or, in spite of the snow lingering on the ground, play basketball outside.

Sacco began the day Sunday morning by addressing the elephant in the room— it was, after all, Valentine’s Day. He encouraged students to think of the holiday as a chance to ref lect on the role of love in their lives in a broad sense— “a time to think about who you are and who you want to be and how you want to love.”

The conference then concluded with a look toward the future, as faculty, seniors, and a panel of five alumni discussed challenges such as balancing clinical practice with coursework, making challenging career choices, and finding one’s place in the world of nursing.

Assistant Professor Allyssa Harris (pictured far left), a women’s health nurse practitioner who earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the Connell School,

recalled the path she took from her first job at a nursing home, to working as a post-partum nurse, to specialization at large hospitals and community health centers in the Boston area. Ref lecting on her own winding road, Harris reminded students that “the opportunity to explore different specialties doesn’t end at the end of school. Sit back, ref lect, and learn what would make you happy,” she advised. “Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.”

Students in the breakout groups also talked about their reasons for choosing nursing over other prospective careers and courses of study, and the notion that other students might perceive the major as less lucrative or less prestigious than others.

“People have preconceptions about what nursing is and what we do,” Golden said.

“We understand what we do and why. It takes a special kind of person to do this job and be in this major. We’re all in it for other reasons.”

Jamie Krzmarzick ’09, M.S. ’15, who spoke on the alumni panel on Sunday afternoon, said she had found her home at Boston College in the retreat experience and the community around it, and encouraged current students to carry a spirit of ref lection and discernment into their post-college lives. “When you’re out in the real world, you don’t find experiences like

this weekend, where you take time out to think and ref lect, as easily,” she said. “You have to make time for that.”

To end the weekend in a spirit of ref lection, the students participated in a concluding activity called “Fishbowl.” They wrote highlights, new plans, and things they were thankful for from the conference on pieces of paper. They could then, if they so chose, come to the front of the room and share their thoughts. One by one, more than 20 students got to their feet and made their way up to the stage. They spoke about renewed friendships and new ones, of a broadened sense of what clinical practice would be like and what professional and educational opportunities lay beyond the end of their undergraduate education, and of a sense of openness that they hoped would remain when they returned to campus.

In her closing remarks, Gennaro employed the image of a raft on a river as an analogy for the journey through life and career.

“You build a great raft, but you can’t control the currents,” she told the students.

“You’re going to end up wherever the spirit, or nature, or God wants to take you.”

When she asked the room how many people thought the retreat should happen again, almost every hand in the room went up. n

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New faculty by chris reidy Photographs by Lee Pellegrini

One is dedicated to teaching and expanding the role of nutrition across the lifespan. The other has made eradicating disease a focus of her career. Meet the new full-time faculty at the Connell School of Nursing.

Nadia Abuelezam While she was studying mathematical modeling at Harvey Mudd College, Nadia Abuelezam, Sc.D., got a chance to work as an intern with the AIDS Support Organization in Uganda. The experience changed her life.

The pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS in every aspect of Ugandan life so moved her that she decided to immerse herself in understanding the intersection between health and society, she explained. “I was inspired to make it my life’s mission to reduce the burden of these diseases.”

Abuelezam, an epidemiologist and an assistant professor at the Connell School, co-teaches two courses in Global Public Health, an interdisciplinary undergraduate program offered collaboratively by the Boston College schools of nursing, education, and social work. She comes to the Connell School from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she earned a doctor of science degree and co-taught a course on HIV/AIDS. As a doctoral student, she used her expertise in mathematical modeling to examine how HIV/AIDS affects populations in Botswana, India, and South Africa.

Some of Abuelezam’s current research focuses on risky sexual behavior—and whether information gathered from observing online behavior on social networking and dating websites “translates” into accurate sexual behavior statistics. The hope is that scrutinizing social media will yield data meaningful to epidemiologists who are looking for better ways to treat HIV/AIDS and prevent its spread, she said.

Abuelezam is also concerned with racism and discrimination, which she considers among the most pressing and least understood issues in public health. As she told Summer Hawkins, a School of Social Work assistant professor: “I think we know very little about how racial inequality, discrimination, and stigma impact health and well-being and, more importantly, we don’t know how to help people who have experienced this stress in their lives.”

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Sheila Tucker In her 28 years at Boston College, Sheila Tucker, M.A., RD, CSSD, LDN, has taught nutrition and fitness in the Lynch School of Education, nutrition for life in the Woods College of Advancing Studies, and pharmacology and nutrition at CSON. She has served as an executive dietitian for Boston College Dining Services and a performance nutritionist for Boston College Athletics, advising studentathletes on what and when to eat, and “how to navigate the dining halls,” she said.

After years of combining part-time teaching with a clinical nutrition practice on campus, Tucker is now a full-time clinical instructor, dividing her time between the Connell School and Woods College. At CSON, her teaching focuses on the role of nursing in providing patient care across the lifespan. She teaches wellness nutrition, an elective, at Woods College.

The science of nutrition is evolving rapidly, she noted. Once patients were given blanket recommendations. Now there is more emphasis on an individualized approach, she said. In fact, the field is evolving so rapidly that Tucker plans to devote some of her time to updating Nutrition and Diet Therapy for Nurses (Pearson, 2010), a book she wrote with Vera Dauffenbach, an associate professor of nursing at Bellin College in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Nutrition is a life skill, Tucker said. “And I tell my class it’s a moving target. Every day, I have to read new studies.” She tells her students, too, that it is the job of the nurse to act as an educator in reinforcing the importance of diets prescribed to treat such conditions as diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure.

“Teaching,” Tucker added, “is what I absolutely love the most.”

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faculty publications Stewart Bond

Joyce Edmonds

Pamela Grace

Bond, S.M., Schumacher, K., Sherrod, A., Dietrich, M.S., Wells, N., Lindau, R.H., & Murphy, B.A. (2016). Development of the Head and Neck Cancer Caregiving Task Inventory.

European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 24, 28–38.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejon.2016.08.004

Edmonds, J.K., Campbell, L.A., & Gilder, R.E. (2016). Public health nursing practice in the Affordable Care Act era: A national survey. Public Health Nursing. DOI: 10.1111/phn.12286

Perry, D.J., Willis, D.G., Peterson, K.S., & Grace, P.J. (2016). Exercising nursing essential and effective freedom in behalf of social justice: A humanizing model. Advances in Nursing Science.

Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1097/ ANS.0000000000000151

Bond, S.M., Dietrich, M.S., Gilbert, J., Ely, E.W., Jackson, J.C., & Murphy, B.A. (2016).

Neurocognitive function in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing primary or adjuvant chemoradiation treatment. Supportive Care in Cancer, 24(10), 4433–4442. DOI: 10.1007/ s00520-016-3284-1

Triggs, D.V., & Flanagan, J.M. (2016).

Supporting the patient’s choice to open access private health information. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 12(7), e323–e326. DOI: 10.1016/j. nurpra.2016.04.003

Bond, S.M., Bolton, R., & Boltz, M.P. (2016).

“The frail hospitalized older adult.” In EvidenceBased Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice (5th ed., pp. 443–454). New York, NY: Springer.

Sean Clarke Déry, J., DʼAmour, D., Blais, R., & Clarke, S.P. (2015). Influences on and outcomes of enacted scope of nursing practice: A new model.

Advances in Nursing Science, 38(2), 136–143. DOI: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000071 Rochefort, C.M., Rathwell, B.A., & Clarke, S.P. (2016). Rationing of nursing care interventions and its association with nurse-reported outcomes in the neonatal intensive care unit: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Nursing, 15(1), 46.

Clarke, S.P. (2016). RN workforce update: Current and long-range forecast. Nursing Management, 47(11), 20–25. DOI: 10.1186/ s12912-016-0169-z Smith, A., & Clarke, S.P. (2016). Ensuring positive capstone experiences for students and staff. Nursing Management, 47(3), 12–14. DOI: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000480767.08955.61 Clarke, S.P. (2016). Navigating a researchfocused doctoral program in nursing. Nursing Management, 47(1), 19–21. DOI: 10.1097/01.

NUMA.0000475634.98128.83

Susan DeSanto-Madeya DeSanto-Madeya, S.A., & Fawcett, J. (2016). Healing and transcendence: A Roy Adaptation Model-guided comparison.

Nursing Science Quarterly, 29(3), 219–226. DOI: 10.1177/0894318416647166

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Flanagan, J.M., Tetler, D., Winters, L., Post, K., & Habin, K. (2016). The experience of initiating oral adjuvant treatment for estrogen receptorpositive breast cancer. Oncology Nursing Forum, 43(4), E143–E152. DOI: 10.1188/16.ONF. E143-E152 Callans, K.M., Bleiler, C., Flanagan, J.M., & Carroll, D.L. (2016). The transitional experience of family caring for their child with a tracheostomy. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 31(4), 397–403. DOI: 10.1016/j.pedn.2016.02.002 Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C.Y., Stamp, K.D., & Flanagan, J. (2016). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003

Susan Gennaro Gennaro, S. (2016). Changing challenges and evolving opportunities in nursing education.

Nursing for Women’s Health, 20(5), 443–445.

DOI: 10.1016/j.nwh.2016.08.004 Gennaro, S. (2016). Enjoying the benefits.

Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(6), 527–528.

DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12255 Gennaro, S. (2016). Mistakes to avoid in scientific writing. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(5), 435–436. DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12235 Gennaro, S. (2016). Scanning the horizon.

Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(4), 333. DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12225 Gennaro, S. (2016). Evolving methodologies and technologies in nursing science. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(3), 221–222. DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12212

Grace, P.J., & Milliken, A. (2016). Educating nurses for ethical practice in contemporary health care environments. The Hastings Center Report Special Issue—Nurses at the Table: Nursing, Ethics and Health Policy, 46(supplement S1), S13–S17. DOI: 10.1002/hast.625

M. Katherine Hutchinson Cederbaum, J.A., & Hutchinson, M.K. (2016).

Parent-child communication about abstinence and safer sex in parochial school families.

Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services, 15(1), 48–68. DOI: 10.1080/15381501.2014.973135 Cederbaum, J.A., Adhikari, A.B., Guerrero, E.G., & Hutchinson, M.K. (2016). Relationship satisfaction and communication among urban minority HIV-positive and HIV-negative mothers: The influence on daughter’s alcohol use. Journal of Family Issues, 37(2), 155–176. DOI: 10.1177/0192513X13513582 Nadimpalli, S.B., Cleland, C.M., Hutchinson, M.K., Islam, N., Barnes, L.L., & Van Devanter, N. (2016). The association between discrimination and the health of Sikh Asian Indians. Health Psychology Special Issue—Disparities in Cardiovascular Health, 35(4), 351–355. DOI: 10.1037/hea0000268

Ellen Mahoney Milliken, A., Mahoney, E.K., & Mahoney, K.J. (2016). “It just took the pressure off”: The voices of veterans’ family caregivers in a participant-directed program. Home Health Care Services Quarterly. Advance online publication.

DOI: 10.1080/01621424.2016.1227010 Jablonski-Jaudon, R.A., Winstead, V., Jones-Townsend, C., Azuero, A., Mahoney, E.K., & Kolanowski, A.M. (2016). Revising the resistiveness to care scale. Journal of Nursing Measurement, 24(2), 72E–82E. DOI: 10.1891/1061-3749.24.2.E72

Expand your knowledge.

Advance your career.

Harry, M.L., MacDonald, L., McLuckie, A., Battista, C., Mahoney, E.K., & Mahoney, K.J. (2016). Long-term experiences in cash and counseling for young adults with intellectual disabilities: Familial programme representative descriptions. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1111/jar.12251 Harry, M.L., Kong, J., MacDonald, L.M., McLuckie, A., Battista, C., Mahoney, E.K., & Mahoney, K.J. (2016). The long-term effects of participant direction of supports and services for people with disabilities. Care Management Journals, 17(1), 2–12. DOI: 10.1891/15210987.17.1.2

Tam Nguyen Roy, C., Bakan, G., Li, Z. & Nguyen, T.H. (2016). Coping measurement: Creating short form of Coping and Adaptation Processing Scale using item response theory and patients dealing with chronic and acute health conditions. Applied Nursing Research, 32, 73–79. DOI: 10.1016/j.apnr.2016.06.002

Jinhee Park Dodrill, P., Gosa, M., Thoyre, S., Shaker, C., Pados, B., Park, J., DePalma, N., Hirst, K., Larson, K., Perez, J., Hernandez, K. (2016).

FIRST, DO NO HARM: A response to “Oral alimentation in neonatal and adult populations requiring high-flow oxygen via nasal cannula.”

Dysphagia, 31(6), 781–782. DOI: 10.1007/s00455016-9722-x

Catherine Read Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C.Y., Stamp, K.D., & Flanagan, J. (2016). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003 Read, C.Y., Ricciardi, C.E., Gruhl, A., Williams, L., & Vandiver, K.M. (2016). Building genetic competence through partnerships and interactive models. Journal of Nursing Education, 55(5), 300–303. DOI: 10.3928/0148483420160414-12

Sr. Callista Roy Roy, C., Bakan, G., Li, Z. & Nguyen, T.H. (2016). Coping measurement: Creating short form of Coping and Adaptation Processing Scale using item response theory and patients dealing with chronic and acute health conditions. Applied Nursing Research, 32, 73–79. DOI: 10.1016/j.apnr.2016.06.002

Judith Shindul-Rothschild Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C.Y., Stamp, K.D., & Flanagan, J. (2016). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003

Kelly Stamp Shindul-Rothschild, J., Read, C.Y., Stamp, K.D., & Flanagan, J. (2016). Nurse staffing and hospital characteristics predictive of time to diagnostic evaluation for patients in the emergency department. Journal of Emergency Nursing. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1016/j.jen.2016.07.003

Judith Vessey DiFazio, R., Shore, B., Vessey, J.A., Miller, P.E., & Snyder, B.D. (2016). Effect of hip reconstructive surgery on health-related quality of life of nonambulatory children with cerebral palsy. The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, 98(14), 1190– 1198. DOI: 10.2106/JBJS.15.01063

Danny Willis Perry, D.J., Willis, D.G., Peterson, K.S., & Grace, P.J. (2016). Exercising nursing essential and effective freedom in behalf of social justice: A humanizing model. Advances in Nursing Science.

Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1097/ ANS.0000000000000151

Yaguang Zheng Zheng, Y., Burke, L.E., Danford, C.A., Ewing, L.J., Terry, M.A., & Sereika, S.M. (2016). Patterns of self-weighing behavior and weight change in a weight loss trial. International Journal of Obesity, 40(9), 1392–1396. DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2016.68

Register for one course to update your skills, or enroll in a certificate program to take the next step in your career. upcoming courses Update in Wound Care Saturday, March 25, 2017 Suturing Saturday, April 8, 2017 Code Blue: What Would You Do? Wednesdays, May 3 and 10, 2017

certificate programs Clinical Research Certificate RN Refresher Certificate IV Certificate Medical Spanish Certificate

Learn more: www.bc.edu/ce

continuing education

celebrati

Photographs by Rose Lincoln

More than 100 alumni, faculty, students, and other members of the University community turned out on January 27, 2017, for an open house celebrating the 70th anniversary of Boston College’s School of Nursing. The school opened its doors in 1947 with a class of 35 students. Since then, Boston College has educated more than 10,000 nurses.

Guests browsed an assortment of nursing artifacts and objects from University archives that were on display in the Conference Center on the Brighton Campus, including uniforms, yearbooks, and photographs. Clough Millennium Professor of History James O’Toole recalled the history of the school in a 10-minute presentation, “1947 to Today.” Several guests donned “disguises” (hats, glasses, a foam nose) from an assortment on hand, and posed for group shots in an automated photo booth.

During her remarks, Dean Susan Gennaro read a note of well wishes from a member of the first nursing class. Mary Kelly Cass, who received her bachelor of science in nursing in 1950, expressed regret that she wasn’t able to attend the festivities, but said she wanted those in attendance to know how meaningful her Boston College nursing education was to her.

The 92-year-old alumna holds a current R.N. license.

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Left, top to bottom: Dean Susan Gennaro addresses the assembled guests.

Thelma Thorn ’71, one of the School of Nursing’s first black graduates, holds a 2007 issue of Voice on display at the exhibition. Her photo is featured on the cover.

years

Christine Breen Previtera ’79; Katherine Twitchell ’79, M.S. ’85; Paula Buckley ’79; Dean Susan Gennaro; and Nancy Murphy ’79 Nursing historian Mary Ellen Doona ’67, M.S. ’69, who wrote Light on Life: The Nursing Collection, with retired faculty member Eileen Plunkett ʼ58, M.S. ʼ63, Ph.D. ʼ91 Members of the Class of ’66: Bonnie Gorman, Joan Garity, Diane Connor, Boston College Alumni Association President Ann Riley Finck, Genevieve Foley, and Muffie Martin Right, top to bottom: Photo collages on display Kathy Barrett ’81 and Elizabeth Fee ’81 look at nursing uniforms and caps in the exhibition.

Assistant Professors Nadia Abuelezam and Holly Fontenot in the photo booth Regina Tellis and Cassandra Tellis ’19 talk to Joan Nickell ’54 at the reception.

Cara Hughes ’21 and Kerry Hughes ’88

boston college william f. connell school of nursing

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william f. connell school of nursing 140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

non-profit org. u.s. postage paid boston, ma permit #55294

www.bc.edu/cson

Join us Pinnacle Lecture Series Monday, March 27, 2017, 5:00 p.m. • Yawkey Center, Murray Room

Patricia Flatley Brennan Director, National Library of Medicine

Read more and register: www.bc.edu/pinnacle

Reunion and Dean Rita P. Kelleher Award Ceremony Saturday, june 3, 2017, 1:30 p.m.

Karen Daley, M.S. ʼ04, Ph.D. ʼ10 Past President, American Nurses Association

Read more and register: www.bc.edu/csonreunion